Kansas State University- FMD Could Cost Millions
Agricultural economists at Kansas State University predict that a large scale Foot-and-mouth disease outbreak could cost, 945 Million. If an outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth did occur, all cattle movement and processing would come to a halt. In a state were cattle is king, that’s not a good thing. Thousands of cows would have to be killed to prevent the spread causing even more damage. The economic damage would be eminence.
The team looked at three different scenarios. One situation, dealt with a very large scale intentional outbreak. If foot-and-mouth disease was to be intentionally released on five large feed lots the regional economic damage would total $685 million. Large feed lots consist of over 40,000 heads of cattle. Researches predict that 1.7 million heads of cattle would have to be destroyed to prevent the spread of Foot-and-mouth disease. It’s predicted that this large scale type of intentional infection could last up to three months.
As a rule of thumb, the more cattle infected at once, the better chance of foot-and-mouth spreading to other cattle which is directly related to the economic loss. The smallest scenario, with just one cow and calf initially infected, would cost 23 Million and 123,000 cattle would have to be destroyed. The outbreak could last as long as 29 days. In the last scenario, a feedlot with between 10,000-20,000 cattle becomes infected. It would lead to the destruction of 407,000, cause 140 million in damages and last about 39 days.
I think the numbers speak for themselves. It’s very important that we do as much as possible to prevent such an outbreak. The report also details how vulnerable Kansas is. Over 100,000 cattle are brought in contact with eachother on a weekly basis. The disease defiantly has the potentially to spread quickly and cause massive economic damage to the region. Lets hope we never get to know how accurate these predictions are…
Tags: cattle, Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease, Kansas